Piano no Mori Episode 6 Review: Mori no Piano

Episode 6 of animePiano no Mori ushers in the next stage in Kai’s musical journey. There are some rather heartwrenching farewells and some pretty emotional moments this go round. I found myself shedding more than a few tears… So, grab a box of tissues and prepare your heart for one of the most emotional episodes yet!

Japanese Original Episode Title: 森のピアノ

Plot

After losing his beloved forest piano, Kai realizes that in order to take his playing to the next level, he’ll have to leave some things behind.

Episode Highlights

Burn Baby Burn: So, in perhaps one of the most emotional scenes in the series so far, we see Kai’s beloved forest piano fade into that good night. It’s something we’ve been expecting since the end of the junior music competition, but let’s just say, the old piano went out in a blaze of glory.

Visualizing the Music: This is a bit of a carryover from the manga, where they would visually show music in the background to signify that someone was playing music. However, with an animated medium like this, where the viewer can actually hear when the characters are playing music you’d think this would be unnecessary, but, it’s actually a pretty neat visual cue.

Lighting: The lighting is really important in setting the mood for a scene and Piano no Mori has a pretty interesting approach when it comes to lighting. Scenes where Kai is the focus, tend to depict him bathed in light. Like when he plays his piano in the forest, he is bathed in this intense moonlight that filters through the trees. When he first plays for Ajino in the practice room there is a skylight filtering in moonlight directly on the spot where he is sitting. And, in this week’s episode, when Kai asks Ajino to be his piano teacher, the room is full of this intense sunlight.

Themes & Trivia

An Act of God: The past few episodes take place during a thunderstorm, rain, lightning, thunder… the whole nine yards. Well, this episode sees a bit of divine intervention, courtesy of a rather well-timed bolt of lightning that strikes Kai’s beloved forest piano.

Meaningful Title: The title of the episode is very similar to that of the series. Ηowever, due to the placement of the characters it reads, 森 is the possessive rather than のピアノ, so it reads ‘forest piano’ instead of ‘piano forest’.

Comments

This episode really tugged at the ol’ heartstrings… The past few episodes were building up to something big and this episode definitely delivered. I just didn’t expect it to hurt so much! I am loving how much Kai has grown as a character over the course of just six episodes. When we started this journey, he was just a kid with god-like piano playing skills and no real direction, but now he knows what he wants and he’s going for it! The series started with a flash forward, so we already know where Kai’s journey leads, but the journey itself is what matters, not so much the destination. We’re watching the birth of a new generation of pianists and it is a sight to behold.

Saying Goodbye

Ah, if I had to sum this episode up in one word it would be ‘transitions’. This is the turning point in the story, the point in which Kai ceases to be the snot-nosed brat he was in the first episode and he finally sets out on the path that leads him to the world stage. This episode was full of some very emotional moments, some of the best from the series so far and it seems we’re hitting the ground running. This episode was phenomenal.